



















































* 






































BY RALPH WALDO TRINE 

“The Life Books” 

THE LAND OF LIVING MEN 

WHAT ALL THE WORLD'S A-SEEKING 

IN TUNE WITH THE INFINITE; or 

Fulness of Peace, Power and Plenty. 

THIS MYSTICAL LIFE OF OURS 
A volume of selections for each week 
through the year, from the Author's 
complete works. 

& 

The “Life” Booklets 
ON THE OPEN ROAD 
THOUGHTS I MET ON THE HIGHWAY 
THE WINNING OF THE BEST 
THE GREATEST THING EVER KNOWN 
EVERY LIVING CREATURE 
CHARACTER-BUILDING THOUGHT POWER 
M 

The Trine Calendar 

THE SUNLIT ROAD 

Selections for each week in the year 

Jg 


PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK BY 
DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 




The 
A/mning of 
The Best 



BY 


Ralph Waldo Trine 

it 



New York 

ge Publishing Company 

220 East 23d Street 



Copyright, 1912 

By RALPH WALDO TRINE 




©CI.A330505 

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3 W/ 

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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Which Way Is Life Leaning?.. 5 

II. The Creative Power of Thought.... 13 

III. The Best Is the Life. 35 

IV. The Power That Makes Us What 

We Are. 49 

V. A Basis of Philosophy and Religion 73 

VI. How We Will Win the Best. 87 

T ' 












WHICH WAY IS LIFE 
LEANING ? 











THE WINNING OF 
THE BEST 


“The optimist fell ten stories 
And at each window bar 
He shouted to his friends— 

‘All right so far/” 

W AS he, as one is now and then inclined 
to think, a silly-pated fool, or was 
there some basis for the feeling which 
inspired his utterance? In other words, are 
those to whom life seems so bright, buoyant, 
even and interesting, in distinction from those 
to whom it seems so dark and complex and un¬ 
certain, to be described by this same, or by 
some kindred term? 

Then, there are those who have exchanged 
fears and forebodings, gloom, and at least ap¬ 
parent despair, with their many times attend¬ 
ant bodily ailments, for peace and health and 
strength and newness of power. In other 
words they have come into a newness of life 
that is, to speak mildly, most interesting, and 
in some cases quite miraculous both to them¬ 
selves and to their friends and acquaintances. 
Is it pure imagination? Then is imagination 
7 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


rather a good thing to have ? Especially as in 
such vast numbers of cases these things last. 
It is true moreover of people of not any one 
peculiar trend of mind and thought and life, but 
of people of all descriptions and all types and 
so-called stations in life. Is it merely a dif¬ 
ference of temperament that life seems so 
gloomy and uncertain and get-no-where to 
some, and so buoyant and certain and straight- 
to-the-mark like, to others? If so, is there 
somehow or somewhere a power to change or 
alter temperament? 

A part of what we might term the optimist’s 
philosophy is—If you can mend a situation 
mend it; if you can’t mend it, forget it. Is it 
good philosophy or is it foolishness? 

To me the term optimist marks the man or 
the woman of energy and commonsense, in dis¬ 
tinction from the one of either supine inactivity 
or that will allow himself or herself to get, as 
we say, all “balled-up,” when in reality there 
is no occasion for it. Moreover if this one was 
a silly-pated fool, then was Browning also 
when he wrote: 

“One who never turned his back, but marched breast 
forward, 

Never doubted clouds would break. 

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong 
would triumph, 

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 

Sleep to wake.” 


8 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

Was Samuel Johnson? when he said: “The 
habit of looking at the bright side of things is 
worth more than a thousand a year.” Was 
Lowell? when he said: “Let us be of good 
cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hard¬ 
est to bear are those that never come.” Or 
again, is G. K. Chesterton? when he says: “The 
optimist is a better reformer than the pessi¬ 
mist: and the man who believes life to be ex¬ 
cellent is the one who alters it most.” Or, 
looking at the matter in a really serious man¬ 
ner,—has the optimist something that the other 
fellow hasn’t? 

Personally I believe in the absolute reign of 
la*)», and in nothing, perhaps, more fully than 
in the law of cause and effect, the same as I be¬ 
lieve that all life is from within out, and as 
is the inner, therefore, so always and neces¬ 
sarily is the outer. 

A few days ago, a friend who sees much of 
all phases of life, and whose daily work many 
times takes him among those whose lives and 
whose hardships and sufferings, both mental 
and physical, would cause ordinarily the stout¬ 
est heart that witnesses them to grow down¬ 
cast and sceptical, said: “It’s a good thing, 
after all, for one to have a little philosophy in 
his life; there are times when it stands him in 
right good hand.” 

Where is there a philosophy of real value 
that the average man can get hold of—a phi- 
9 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


losophy that will give results—a philosophy 
that as we say, will make good? Judging from 
all the philosophical and religious systems in 
the world, it would seem that every man and 
woman could have no want whatever along 
this line. Or, are they so complex, or are they 
so mixed with other things that so obscure 
their real working and vitalising portions, that 
we average mortals don’t know just how to get 
hold of them? Undoubtedly many of them are 
sadly in need of some simplifying process, or 
some process that will extract the really vital 
portions from the great mass of verbiage that 
enshrouds them, or from the great mass of ex¬ 
traneous matter that has crept in, practically 
to engulf them. 

The skilled machinst is, I believe, continu¬ 
ally on the alert to simplify the splendid speci¬ 
men of modern machinery, by the elimination 
of every possible part that is not absolutely 
essential to its performing its real functions. 
To me whatever in philosophy, in religion, or 
in any code of life principles has use,—can be 
applied and used in the every-day problems of 
our common work-a-day life, is of value, and 
whatever hasn’t, is not only valueless, but is, 
moreover, a positive detriment, in that it tends 
to keep from us the real vital laws and forces 
that, as we say, do the work. To me, if we con¬ 
sider terms not too technically, philosophy and 
religion are very similar and, in a sense, the 
10 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


same. They have also a very similar character¬ 
istic when we endeavour to apply to them both 
this great principle of use . 

I was reading only yesterday a portion of a 
very able sermon on the Sunday editorial page 
of one of our great dailies, in which the writer 
made a very strong plea for the value of allegi¬ 
ance to Truth, and the value of allegiance to 
Religion. Nowhere, however, was there a 
word said in regard to just what was meant 
by “truth” or what was meant by “religion.” 
I dare say the sermon was of as little real prac¬ 
tical value to ninety-nine out of every hundred 
readers as it was to me. 

We read now and then that one of the great 
secrets of life is “Adjustment.” Again, that 
the secret of life is “Harmony.” Granting this, 
is there some great truth, some great central 
truth, so to speak, that we can adjust ourselves 
—our daily lives—to ? Some great central truth 
that we can square our lives by? Said one of 
the world’s greatest teachers: “Ye shall know 
the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 
Is there some understandable, some universal 
truth or principle that all can accept, and that 
all lives can be squared by? 

I believe most profoundly that the optimist 
has something that the other fellow hasn’t. If 
it is a commonsense, get-some-where and 
more-than-a-day optimism, I believe that its 
possessor has found primarily two great facts. 

11 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


The one is that there is a Science of Thought. 
The other is what might be termed the fact of 
the Divinity of Human Life—the element of 
Divinity with insights and powers that are 
greater than the ordinary human. 


12 


THE 

CREATIVE POWER 
OF THOUGHT 




A ND what do we mean by a Science of 
Thought? Its fundamental principle is 
the fact that thoughts are forces, that 
like creates like, and like attracts like, and for 
one to govern his thinking, therefore, is to de¬ 
termine his life. 

We are now finding that a definite active 
thought is a force, the same as electricity is a 
force, the same as vibration is a force, or rath¬ 
er as certain forms of vibration are produc¬ 
tive of certain forms of force. They have form 
and quality and power, which we are now be¬ 
ginning to determine in our very laboratory 
experiments; although, up to the present time, 
we have learned more perhaps of their influ¬ 
ences and effects than we have definitely of 
their qualities. We know definitely already a 
great deal of their effects in habit-forming, in 
character-building, and their effects in body¬ 
building, the same as we have discovered defi¬ 
nitely certain great laws in connection with 
their influences upon others. We have reached 
the stage of what may properly be called “sci¬ 
entific mind and body-building” through the 
agency of thought. As we think, so we become 
—cause, effect. Necessarily is it true, then— 
as is the inner, so always and inevitably is the 
outer. 


15 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


There is the hopeful, optimistic type of 
thought, which to whatever extent indulged, 
gradually increases the power for this type of 
thought. It has the effect of aiding greatly in 
the accomplishment of whatever we set out to 
do, the same as it has most potent and power¬ 
ful influences in inducing health and strength 
and vigour in connection with all bodily organs 
and functions. It is what may be termed the 
normal, natural, creative type of thought. On 
the other hand, there is the fearing, vacillating, 
the sort of negative type of thought that has 
the influence of crippling our energies, stealing 
success in advance from our endeavours, the 
same as it has a depressing, sort of closing up, 
deadening effect upon all bodily functions and 
powers. We are finding scientifically true “as 
a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Along 
whatever line the mind sets itself does it at¬ 
tract unseen elements that induce it to grow 
gradually more and more along that line, as 
well as elements that aid it in accomplishing 
its set purpose. 

There is in connection with thought a law 
that we are now beginning to understand, that 
may be termed “the drawing power of mind.” 
We are continually attracting to us, from both 
the seen and the unseen sides of life, influences 
and conditions corresponding with the types of 
thought we most habitually allow to take form 
in our minds, and that we consequently most 
16 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


habitually live with. “Birds of a feather flock 
together” is a very old statement. But birds of 
a feather flock together because like attracts 
like. For one to govern his thinking, then, is 
not only to determine his own life, but to de¬ 
termine also those that he attracts to him, his 
acquaintances and, eventually, his friends and 
companions. 

The hopeful, confident, successful type of 
thought not only attracts to us success, but it 
also attracts to us successful people, those 
whose lives are dominated by the same type or 
trend of thought. They, in turn, become of 
help to us, and we to them. So, as we give in 
thought, we also get back again. 

Not only are our accomplishments deter¬ 
mined by our prevailing types of thought, but 
our influence upon others is determined in this 
same way. Those who come in personal con¬ 
tact with us are influenced invariably, though 
many times unconsciously, by our prevailing 
types of thought. If we are hopeful, we in¬ 
spire hope—we radiate hope and encourage¬ 
ment and strength, so to speak. If we have a 
feeling of friendship and good-will and helpful¬ 
ness— tcfoe —we inspire these same qualities in 
others, and the same types of warming and 
life-giving thought-forces come back in turn to 
us from them. It is, therefore, scientifically 
true that as a man gives he gets. 

We are all influenced, and whether conscious 
17 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

of it or not, by the prevailing mental and emo¬ 
tional states and conditions of those with 
whom we come in contact. It was Beecher 
who said: 

“There are persons so radiant, so genial, so 
kind, so pleasure-bearing, that you instinc¬ 
tively feel in their presence that they do you 
good; whose coming into a room is like the 
bringing of a lamp there.” 

We use the term personal magnetism. Care¬ 
ful analysis will generally reveal the fact that 
personal magnetism is the outcome of clean, 
positive, cheerful, sympathetic, and helpful 
types of thought, that have gradually built cer¬ 
tain qualities into the life of the one entertain¬ 
ing them, and that are instinctively felt by all 
those with whom he comes in contact. I have 
never yet known of one of a fearing, negative, 
critical, self-centered and self-seeking type of 
thought to have, to any appreciable degree, the 
quality that we term “personal magnetism.” 

If we are small and critical we inspire and 
call from others the small and critical type of 
thought and act. If we hate we inspire hatred, 
and, with its chilling, killing qualities, it will 
turn back to us again. If we live in envy of 
those who are doing things, we are dwarfing 
powers within us that, if rightly cultivated and 
grown, would enable us likewise to do things, 
and thus remove any cause for envy. If we 
love we inspire love, and the warming, enno- 
18 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


bling, uplifting influences of love will come 
back to us. We can hinder and retard another 
by holding him or her in the thought of weak¬ 
ness or failure, the same as we can hinder or 
retard our own efforts. 

“Keep your courage up, and you’ll do,” was 
Stevenson’s way, perhaps unconsciously, of 
stating this law. Mrs. Wiggs also, perhaps un¬ 
consciously, stated it when she said: “When 
things first got to goin’ wrong with me, I says: 
‘O Lord, whatever comes, keep me from gittin’ 
sour!’ Since then I’ve made it a practice to 
put all my worries down in the bottom of my 
heart, then sit on the lid an’ smile.” And again, 
when she said: “Don’t you go and git sorry fer 
yerself. That’s one thing I can’t stand in no¬ 
body. Ther’s always lots of other folks you 
kin be sorry fer ’stead of yerself. Ain’t you 
proud you ain’t got a harelip? Why, that one 
thought is enough to keep me from ever gittin’ 
sorry fer myself.” 

It’s the man or the woman who does not al¬ 
low himself or herself to get, as the expression 
is, “all balled up,” who generally arrives, and 
who also wears. Those who do allow it are 
generally the greatest hindrances there are in 
the world to themselves, and they are likewise 
a hindrance to others. Certainly, others are in¬ 
fluenced, and generally badly influenced, by the 
uncertain, excitable and non-productive type 
of thought that emanates as an atmosphere 
19 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


from them. To keep cairn and quiet within— 
and the mouth closed—and to look forward 
with hope and faith and courage, and with the 
dogged determination of still finding the best 
when the illusions break or show cracks, is the 
mark of the man or the woman who will finally 
win out. 

Again, there is that rather large aggregation 
of people who are allowing happiness to re¬ 
main away from them, and from those sur¬ 
rounding them, by giving undue attention to 
little, non-essential things, instead of seeing 
the fundamentals that are alone worth the at¬ 
tention of a normal, clear-cut type of man or 
woman. 

Such large amounts, whole cargoes, we might 
say, of peace and harmony are allowed to es¬ 
cape from such vast numbers of families be¬ 
cause some member or members do not under¬ 
stand the significance of this important fact. 
How many millions of parents, especially 
mothers, in the world’s history, could have 
been saved hours and, in the aggregate, years 
of worry, senseless, useless worry, if they had 
realised the importance of this in connection 
with their children! 

Then there comes that more pronounced and 
decided enemy and assassin of human endeav¬ 
our and happiness—or, rather, two kindred 
ones, but always closely enough allied to be 
called twins—fear and worry. The mysterious, 
20 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


or the marvellous feature of these, to me, is al¬ 
ways the fact that by them nothing is ever to 
be gained, but much is always to be lost. Fear 
always has the influence of neutralising normal 
healthy endeavour and action, sometimes to 
the extent of paralysing it fully, the same as 
it has on all bodily functions and powers. 

Much the same is true in regard to worry, 
both in connection with human activity and en¬ 
deavour, as well as in connection with various 
bodily organs and functions, though in connec¬ 
tion with the latter its action is more of a slow 
corroding and poisoning, rather than of a neu¬ 
tralising or paralysing nature. If anything 
were to be gained by either, one could easily 
see why they have such an almost universal 
hold on human life. But when we once fully 
realise, as every normal-minded person can, 
that by them nothing is to be gained, but 
everything to be lost, we can see how thor¬ 
oughly foolish and expensive they are. 

There are vast numbers of people every¬ 
where to-day who are given to them, and who 
are paying their continual heavy tolls, who 
could do nothing more valuable in all the world 
than to set about in a very definite way to 
think this proposition over; and, instead of fur¬ 
ther drifting under their influence, set sail and 
rudder straight for a point where these will be 
left forever behind. Not that one can always 
change a habit instantly, but it is essential to 
21 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


realise that when one is drifting he will likely 
continue to drift indefinitely, unless he set out 
in the direction of the point at which he wants 
eventually to arrive. 

To set the face in the right direction, and 
then simply to travel on, unmindful and 
never discouraged by even frequent relapses 
by the way, is the secret of all human achieve¬ 
ment. 

Fear and worry and all kindred mental states 
are so expensive that no man, woman, or child 
can afford to give them a dominating or even 
the slightest hold in his or her life. They will 
grow if we indulge them; they will depart—in 
time completely—if we are really determined 
that we can’t afford them. 

There are untold numbers among us who are 
suffering various bodily ailments that have 
been induced, many times unconsciously on 
their part, by these two great filchers of hu¬ 
man health and, therefore, of happiness. Fear 
invariably paralyses healthy action; worry cor¬ 
rodes and pulls down the organism. If not 
quick-acting, as in cases now and then they 
are, they have always the slow-poisoning influ¬ 
ence. 

Long-continued grief at any real or apparent 
loss will do the same. Anger, jealousy, malice, 
a brooding disposition of any type, will do the 
same—each has its own peculiar corroding, 
poisoning, tearing down effects. A close-fisted, 
22 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


hoarding, stingy disposition will have also 
similar effects. 

Wise is he who determines early to do away 
forever with the companionship of the two 
twins. They are black fellows. They never help 
us. They never work, they never clean for us, 
but in their pails they carry always poison. 
Why not good-night, then, to the Black 
Twins! 

To bid good-by to fear and worry, opening 
all doors and windows to hope and faith which 
always induce courage, which in turn is always 
productive of normal healthy action, and then 
coupling this with rightly directed endeavour, 
can work a complete reformation, even to a 
revolution, in any life within even a twelve- 
month; and a twelvemonth passes, as we all 
realise, oh! so quickly. 

Not that there are no problems, and hard and 
distressing circumstances, and even tragedies, 
that come into our common lives, but the very 
fact that these do come is the great reason why 
we should equip ourselves with the best agen¬ 
cies to meet and to master them, to leave them 
behind and, as quickly as possible,—then to 
forget them. Faith, hope, courage, and cheer¬ 
fulness all along the way are the agencies that 
will stand by us successfully to meet, to mas¬ 
ter, to get the good from each experience; then 
to pass on and completely forget the distress¬ 
ing portions. 


23 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


It is not, What are the conditions in any life? 
but how a man meets whatever conditions 
arise, that determines whether he is a creature 
or a master of circumstances, that determines 
whether he has backbone and stamina, and 
withal good commonsense in connection with 
his life problems. Cheerfulness, looking al¬ 
ways on the bright side of things, determined 
always to stand in the sunshine, rather than in 
the shadow—this it is that makes life, with its 
knotty problems, continually easier. It’s the 
“oil of gladness” that helps in doing the work. 
It is productive also of the influence that mys¬ 
teriously escapes from our lives, that helps the 
friend, and the neighbour also, with his prob¬ 
lems. It’s a great help for us sometimes to re¬ 
member that the neighbour has his problems 
also. And then the neighbour around on the 
next corner likewise, and- 

To take a cheerful, hopeful, optimistic, 
never-down-in-the-mouth, but courage-always- 
up attitude of mind, is to set in, and to keep 
in continual operation, subtle, silent forces 
that are working along the lines we are going, 
and that open the way for us to arrive. 

They are the forces that are working for us 
continual good if we are but wise enough to 
recognise them and put them into operation. 
They are waiting always to be appropriated by 
us if we have an understanding sufficient to 
enable us to recognise and appropriate them. 

24 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


“It is a part of my religion to look well after 
the cheerfulness of life, and let the dismals 
shift for themselves,” said Alcott. 

The world to-day is filled with heroes, heroes 
in the common life, but greater are they than 
any General, because the General ordinarily 
isn’t out on the fields of continual fighting. 
They are the men and the women who are 
meeting their problems, many times distress¬ 
ing, and hard to understand, but always with 
courage up, always with a smile on their lips— 
even when hearts are sad—saying little, if any¬ 
thing, because they are too big, or because 
they haven’t time for wanting sympathy, and 
also because they are not sufficiently selfish to 
grow the habit of intruding their problems and 
their troubles upon others. 

That we be men and women, although we 
stumble often and fall, is undoubtedly what 
Marcus Aurelius had in mind when so many 
years ago he said: “Be not discouraged, or out 
of humour, because practice falls short of pre¬ 
cept in some particulars. If you happen to be 
beaten, come on again, and be glad if most of 
your acts are worthy of human nature. Love 
that to which you return, and do not go, like 
a schoolboy to his master, with an ill-will.” It 
was Horace who said: “The mind that is 
cheerful in its present state will be adverse to 
all solicitudes for the future, and will meet the 
bitter occurrences of life with a placid smile.” 

25 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


A similar thought was that of Aristotle: “Suf¬ 
fering becomes beautiful when any one bears 
great calamities with cheerfulness, not through 
insensibility, but through greatness of mind.” 

St. Francis (de Sales) struck squarely and 
helpfully at one of the great principles of life 
when he said: “Do not look forward to what 
might happen to-morrow; the same everlasting 
Father who cares for you to-day will take care 
of you to-morrow, and every day. Either He 
will shield you from suffering, or He will give 
you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, 
then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and 
imaginations.” 

We are now beginning to realise that happi¬ 
ness is a duty, and that the one who is not 
happy—if not chronically, at least primarily so 
—has either failed to grasp some of the essen¬ 
tial principles and forces in life, or that his 
courage isn’t up. Happiness is a normal and 
natural condition, and something is radically 
wrong with every life where it doesn’t play at 
least a predominating part. Such a life fails 
also in performing its duty towards its neigh¬ 
bour as it should perform it. It is apt to be 
a hindrance rather than a help in this, our 
common journey. It was Stevenson who said: 
“A happy man or woman is a better thing to 
find than a five-pound note. He or she is a ra¬ 
diating focus of good-will, and their entrance 
into a room is as though another candle had 
26 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


been lighted. We need not care whether they 
could prove the forty-seventh proposition. 
They do a better thing than that; they practi¬ 
cally demonstrate the great theorem of the 
liveableness of life.” 

But Humanity is brave, so brave we will find 
if we search carefully—and even at times per¬ 
chance if we look within—as to fill us with ad¬ 
miration for this rather common and, at times, 
queer and questionable thing we call Human 
Nature. Hope and courage and sympathy and 
trust are great producers, and they are great 
factors in a man’s doing his duty, as well as his 
having the joy of achievement. “Never to tire,” 
said Amiel, “never to grow cold; to be patient, 
sympathetic, tender; to look for the budding 
flower and the opening heart; to hope always 
like God; to love always—this is Duty.” 

No, an optimistic philosophy rightly under¬ 
stood, does not teach that life is merely a long, 
even holiday, that there are no minor strains in 
what might be termed its daily music, no prob¬ 
lems to be solved, no bread to be earned, no 
tired bodies that welcome the rest of the night, 
no burdens to be shared with friend, neigh¬ 
bour, relative. 

It does teach that we should always look for 
the best there is, and always expect to find it, 
and that we should never allow ourselves to in¬ 
dulge in fears and forebodings, and to stand 
trembling and helpless when the problem 
27 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


arises, when the distressing circumstance pre¬ 
sents itself, when the work is to be done, and 
perchance the sorrow or bereavement to be 
borne. It teaches also to turn never a deaf, 
but always a ready ear to the friend’s or neigh¬ 
bour’s signal of distress. It equips us with the 
weapons to face such conditions when they 
arise, and to so direct them that they work for 
our advantage and our good, instead of against 
us. 

If we adopt a philosophy that recognises the 
working always of the law of cause and effect, 
instead of mere blind chance happening, then 
we believe that everything that comes into our 
lives has its part to play, and it is our portion 
to meet whatever comes in such a way that it 
will serve its highest purposes in our lives. 
Personally, I believe that nothing ever comes 
by chance, that everything comes through the 
operation of law, although many times we are 
not able to see the cause that has produced or 
that is producing such results. Moreover, I 
believe that whatever comes has its part to 
play, its mission to fulfill, and that if we can! 
not always see it we may not do unwisely in 
having faith that the time will come when we 
will eventually rejoice that each thing came as 
it came. If we can preserve this attitude, then 
when the difficult thing is before us, its sting 
will be drawn, and our faith, insight, and cour¬ 
age to meet it wisely, and to get the best there 
28 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


is from it, will be increased many times a hun¬ 
dredfold. 

We should be lenient in judging another, and 
we should be lenient in judging ourselves. 
From my own stumblings and errors and fall¬ 
ings I have come to the place where my only 
question in regard to another is, Which way is 
he looking? Not, how much has he groped 
and stumbled and fallen, the same as myself; 
but is his face now turned in the right direc¬ 
tion, and is he genuinely endeavouring to keep 
it there? If he is wise enough, when he falls, 
to linger there only long enough to get his les¬ 
son, and long-headed enough to learn it quickly 
and go on, even his stumbling becomes an as¬ 
set, and it is a mere matter of time before he 
reaches a very certain destination. The bright 
child doesn’t have to be burned continually. 
The wise man or woman learns his or her les¬ 
sons quickly and goes on. “Don’t worry when 
you stumble—remember, a worm is about the 
only thing that can’t fall down,” some one has 
said most admirably. 

We can all afford to be exceedingly charita¬ 
ble towards others. The fact that every one 
of us has his failings, and also the fact that 
every one of us has stumbled and fallen—and 
at times fallen flat—gives us a very broad basis 
for that admirable and kingly quality—charity. 
While each of us is in his present incomplete 
state we should be very slow to judge another. 

29 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


It may uncover the hypocrite in us more 
quickly than we may be aware; and to con¬ 
demn another is, if we will consider it in this 
light for but a very brief moment, richly and 
consummately asinine. “To speak wisely,” it 
has been said, “may not always be easy, but not 
to speak ill requires only silence.” We need 
more sympathy in our common life. It is al¬ 
ways a mark of wisdom. It expands the indi¬ 
vidual life also into the other lives around him. 

It is well that we work each for his own in¬ 
dividual good. Any one, however, who stops 
there will find that he can never reach his high¬ 
est individual good unless he takes also an in¬ 
terest—and not merely a sentimental, but an 
active interest—in the lives and in the welfare 
of those about him. “Help thou thy brother’s 
boat across, and, lo! thine own has reached the 
shore,” says the Hindoo proverb. There must 
be the general as well as the individual good, 
and only he who is aiding it is realising the 
best for himself. “I have noticed,” said Uncle 
Eben, “dat de man who gits so selfish dat he 
can’t think o’ nobody ’cept hisse’f, ginerally 
looks like he war thinkin’ of sumpin’ disagree¬ 
able.” 

One of the great laws of life is giving—we 
term it service. Service for others is just as 
essential to our real happiness and to our high¬ 
est welfare as is the fact that we work for our 
own individual welfare. No man lives to him- 
30 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


self alone. No man can live to himself alone. 
The Order of the Universe has been written 
from time immemorial against it. There is no 
man who has ever found happiness by striving 
for it directly. It never has and it never can 
come that way. Why? Simply because the very 
laws of the universe are against it. 

It was Charles Kingsley who sang so truly: 

“Friends, in this world of hurry 
And work and sudden end. 

If a thought comes quick of doing 
A kindness to a friend, 

Do it that very instant! 

Don’t put it off—don’t wait! 

What’s the use of doing a kindness 
If you do it a day too late!” 

A man may become wealthy, he may become 
very wealthy in the sense of acquiring money. 
He may become a millionaire, and even many 
times over, by working for it directly. But very 
common men have done that. Indeed, many of 
a low type have done it. We now have sense 
enough not to call these great men. Careful 
analysis will show, in every case, that it re¬ 
quires service for one’s fellow-men to consti¬ 
tute a great man. The man who is working 
for greatness alone is the man who ordinarily 
never achieves it. 

It is the man who has his mind and heart 
centered on accomplishing the thing that is in 
some way serving or that is to serve his fellow- 
31 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


men, who may some day be elevated by the 
silent vote to the position of greatness. So, 
there is no such thing as finding happiness by 
seeking for it directly. It comes always 
through the operation of a great and univer¬ 
sally established law—by the sympathy, the 
care, the consideration we render to others. 

The higher types of happiness will never 
come by seeking for them directly. A real in¬ 
terest in the affairs of others makes for a gen¬ 
erous, wholesome, inclusive and, therefore, 
broad and happy life. The life that is sharing 
in the interests, the welfare, and the happiness 
of others is the one that is continually expand¬ 
ing in beauty and in power and, therefore, in 
happiness. The little, the equivocal, the small, 
the exclusive, the pure self-seeker, are never 
among those genuinely happy. As Henry 
Drummond once said, they are on the wrong 
track. The large-hearted, the sympathetic, 
those always ready with the helping hand are 
the ones who have found the road. 

Joy in another’s success not only indicates 
always the large type, but it indicates that they 
in turn are worthy of success themselves. And 
if they are not always what we term a success 
in some given field, or art, or in acquiring 
wealth, they are a success in the greatest of 
arts, the Art of Living. They are also a suc¬ 
cess in that the joy and happiness of others en¬ 
ters into and becomes a portion of their own 
32 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


lives. Half the heartaches of the world would 
be banished, and half its burdens would be 
lifted, if every life were habitually tuned to 
this deep but simply expressed sentiment by 
Emily Dickinson: 

“They might not need me—yet they might, 

I’ll let my heart be just in sight. 

A smile so small as mine might be 
Precisely their necessity.” 


33 





> 
















THE BEST IS THE 

LIFE 













I THINK a great reason why the quality of 
happiness and contentment is escaping so 
many lives is that we have lost, to a great 
extent, the sense of proportion. We are con¬ 
cerned and absorbed with so many things that 
are merely means to an end, instead of with 
the end itself. Not that these are not of im¬ 
portance ; but they are, after all, merely means, 
and they can never have any importance other 
than merely relative. We are concerned more 
with the “fixings ,, of life, and the means of 
ever increasing them, than we are with the 
life itself. And, after all, we can never 
get away from the fact, except at the ex¬ 
pense always of a great personal loss, and 
many times even at our peril, that the life is 
the thing. 

We can’t dwell too continually in the lower 
stories of our being without missing the still 
better things that are in the stories above. And 
somehow there is in the very center of our be¬ 
ing, so to speak, a something that continually 
beckons us above. If we heed its call and go 
voluntarily, we find new pleasures and joys and 
satisfactions, such as, somehow or other, would 
not last when we were staying below. Then, 
if we are not wise enough to go voluntarily, we 
invariably are pushed. There is no such thing 
37 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


as standing still in life and enjoying the higher 
forms of happiness. 

Life in its possibilities of enfoldment and 
growth is such a wonderful thing that we are 
missing the transcendent beauties and the last¬ 
ing satisfactions and possessions that lie in the 
upper strata of our being, as long as we are 
careless enough to allow them to escape us. 
This seems to be a fixed and inevitable law of 
our being. It is, therefore, a part of both wis¬ 
dom and happiness if we concern ourselves 
more with the life itself, than to become so 
thoroughly absorbed in some mere phase or 
contingent of life. 

Why is it that we have such an instinctive 
regard for such names as those of Emerson, 
Lincoln, Whitman, Drummond, St. Francis of 
Assisi, Harriet Beecher Stowe? Because they 
were primarily concerned with, and, therefore, 
engaged in, those things that pertain to life. 
Said a noted preacher to a large group of busi¬ 
ness men some time ago: “There are many 
ways of being busy in this world, but there is 
only one business here. The great affair of 
man is living. It is not merely the earning of 
a wage, nor the making of money, nor beating 
one’s rivals, nor electing one’s candidate. It is 
the process of turning environment and endow¬ 
ments into character. It is making manhood.” 
And, again: “The name of Emerson will out¬ 
live those of all our men of many millions. If 
38 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


you would build yourself the most lasting 
monument among men, make your name a 
synonym for honour, for justice, for brotherly 
kindness. ,, Undoubtedly many of us, I believe 
the most of us, unconsciously, we grant in 
many cases, have lost a due sense of proportion 
and adjustment. We will all perhaps readily 
admit that there is much of truth in the fol¬ 
lowing :* 

“We are concerned with many things, per¬ 
plexed on all sides by the rush of events. Do 
we ever consider the madness of this activity 
and its unfairness to our highest good? 

“Many of us in America have lost com¬ 
pletely our sense of proportion in regard to the 
question of activity. We believe that the man 
who is constantly working is the man who is 
“doing things.” Commercially speaking, we 
are “doing things,” for the peasant in the re¬ 
mote villages of Europe speaks of the many 
industries in America. 

“Has the present glory not obscured the 
deeper and richer conception of life? Have we 
not forgotten that the enduring things arise 
from a development of the inner life? Many of 
us are using the husks and throwing away the 
corn. As the individuals are, so will the na¬ 
tion be.” 

It was Emerson who said: “Thus do all 

*From a review of “The Richer Life,” by Walter 
A. Dyer. 


39 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

things preach the indifference of circum¬ 
stances. The man is all”—and was he not 
right? 

Whatever channel the mind sets itself in, the 
life will follow, for it is invariably true that the 
life always follows the thought. It has been 
said that a man is known by absorption, mean¬ 
ing that we can tell the quality and type of 
any one’s life by the things he allows to ab¬ 
sorb him. 

It is true that the common man is the man 
who allows himself to be absorbed completely 
by the common, and by common I mean the 
purely material, things of life—boards, bricks, 
crops, lands, markets, business, food, clothing. 
All of these we readily admit are important. 
But unless a man can rise above these in 
thought, in mind, in spirit, in appreciation and 
enjoyment, now and then, he is, and he is re¬ 
garded by his neighbours, as a common man. 
That is why a man who may be worth many 
millions, but who has neither appreciation nor 
ability for the enjoyment of things beyond his 
millions, is a very common man. 

Among the most thoroughly self-deluded 
people in the world are those who think that 
in the multiplication of things and possessions 
happiness or contentment lies. It is that 
matchless contemporary writer and clear 
thinker, Edward Carpenter, who has said: 
“Life is an art, and a very fine art. One of its 
40 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


first necessities is that you should not have 
more material in it—more chairs and tables, 
servants, houses, lands, bank shares, friends, 
acquaintances, and so forth—than you can 
really handle. It is no good pretending that 
you are obliged to have them. You must cut 
that nonsense short. ... If one’s life is to 
be expressive, one does not want lumber in it, 
it must not be full of things that mean nothing 
or that mean the wrong thing.” 

Life is so much more interesting than boards 
and bricks, than lands and business blocks, and 
even bank accounts, and the men who are 
thoroughly interested in life are always of 
more account, and are always of greater value 
to the world, as well as to themselves, than the 
men who are interested only in these. That is 
why a very eminent corporation lawyer, in a 
notable address some time ago, said: “It is be¬ 
cause I believe so strongly in the saving power 
of the intellectual life upon the institutions of 
society, and upon the welfare of individuals, 
that I plead so earnestly for it. The fortunes 
of science, art, literature, and government are 
indissolubly linked with it. The centers and 
shrines of the most potent influences are not 
the seats of commerce and capital. The village 
of Concord, where Emerson, Hawthorne, Al- 
cott, and Thoreau lived, was, in their day, and 
will long continue to be, a greater force in this 
nation than New York and Chicago added to 
41 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

each other. We may rest in the assured faith 
that, whoever may seem to rule, the thinker is, 
and always will be, the master.” We can read¬ 
ily see what he meant, and can we say that he 
was not right? 

We can not help admiring the ability of the 
man who has the ability for the accumulating 
of wealth. It is an ability of value, as all exec¬ 
utive, administrative, and financial ability al¬ 
ways is. If he stop there, however, he is, so 
to speak, but half a man. There is, moreover, 
a great and distinct loss to the community and 
to the nation. There is also a distinct loss to 
himself. His community, his country—his fel- 
lowmen—stand in too great a need of such 
splendid abilities. 

It is little short of marvellous to think what 
a few men with these splendid equipments, 
scattered throughout our various communities 
and cities and states, could do for civic, for 
community, for human advancement, were 
they to throw these energies as actively along 
these lines as they have thrown them into 
their various lines of business. It is wonder¬ 
fully interesting, and even fascinating, I know 
—the operation of large business, the feeling of 
accomplishment, of achievement. But, after 
all, it is boards and bricks, rails and ties, pack¬ 
ing boxes, checks and receipts; and they are all 
inanimate, insensible things. They do not, 
after all, pertain to the real life; and, more- 
42 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


over, they will all soon have to be left be¬ 
hind. 

You have had the enjoyment of making, 
now experience the greater joy of using. No 
greater joy can come to any man than to use 
his means and his abilities while he still lives 
in connection with human needs and the ad¬ 
vancing of human welfare. Instead of putting 
the time and the energy and the accumulations 
into more business blocks, that are not really 
needed, and that very common men will gladly 
build, and that, moreover, in a very few years 
will become dingy and out of date, and that 
will be pulled down, to give place to something 
different, something more attractive and up to 
date, put them into life—individual, collective. 

There is no deep and abiding satisfaction for 
a man on account of big business, on account 
of large accumulations, on account of large 
achievements along these lines. It is only if 
he stop there and if nothing further can be said 
of him that determines whether he is really 
successful —and Whether he is actually rich or 
poor # Said Jane Addams recently: “Nothing 
so deadens the sympathies and shrivels the 
power of enjoyment as the persistent keeping 
away from the great opportunities for helpful¬ 
ness and a continual ignoring of the starvation 
struggle which makes up the life of at least 
half the race.” 

If a man is mastered by his business he is 
43 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


little different in reality from the man who is 
mastered by his v I '..key bottle. It is merely 
another exhibition of human weakness. It is 
merely a species of obsession. It is, indeed, in¬ 
teresting what creatures of habit we may be¬ 
come, all unconsciously but quite inevitably, if 
we are not capable of preserving a sense of pro¬ 
portion in life. 

Mankind is advancing. It is attaining to an 
ever higher standing ground, and it is placing 
those who are incapable of the things of the 
mind and spirit, the imagination and the heart, 
on a very ordinary plane. No, the best is the 
life—the things of the mind and spirit. They 
will buy out all the world at last. Why? Be¬ 
cause they are the things that are real, the 
things that will last, the only things that 
eventually really count. It’s the thinker and 
the man of broad unself-centered, sympathetic 
impulses that always will lead, and that always 
will be recognised as the leader. 

Several years ago there came to my notice a 
little book,* by a man of affairs, that dealt with 
such remarkable insight and such persuasion 
of expression with the matter immediately in 
hand, that I have recently gone to it again, to 
see if it, as we say, still stands. I find it does, 

*“The Kingdom of Light” (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), by 
George Record Peck, General Counsel of the Chi¬ 
cago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company, 
and former President of the American Bar Associa¬ 
tion. 

^ 44 





THE WINNING OF THE B‘" ST 

and I wish I had the right, and the opj: ^rtunity 
—did space allow—to reproduce it lts en “ 
tirety here: 

“I speak only of the life that n" w IS > ^ ow * ts 
highest compensations can V e won, its re¬ 
wards, if you please, attained»sorrows miti¬ 
gated, and its joys increased an< * multiplied. 

“And this is the lessor I would give: Dwel 
in the Kingdom of Light. And where is that 
kingdom? What ar* its boundaries? What 
cities are builded ’within it? What hills, an 
plains, and mountain slopes gladden the eyes 
of its possessor^? Be patient. . . . Do not 

hasten to se?>irch for it. It is here. The King¬ 
dom of Li.ght, like the Kingdom of God, is 
within yo u. And what do I mean by the King¬ 
dom of Light? I mean that realm of which a 
quaint r old poet sang those quaint old lines: 

e “My mind to me a kingdom is,— 

4 Such perfect joy therein I find. 

As far exceeds all earthly bliss. 

“I mean that invisible commonwealth which 
f Outlives the storms of ages; that state whose 
armaments are thoughts; whose weapons are 
ideas; whose trophies are the pages of the 
a world’s great masters. 

“The Kingdom of Light is the kingdom of 
the intellect, of the imagination, of the heart, 
of the spirit and the things of the spirit. . . * 
“The Kingdom of Light is open to all who 
seek the light. This may appear a mere truism, 
45 


TH^ W nj||}JG OF THE BEST 

since every one admits the superiority of the 
mental the phy ical nature. But that is 
where the {anger lies. All admit it; but how 
few act upoi\ i\! How many men and women 
do you know y/ho, ?fter they have, as the 
phrase goes,, f- ' shed theit education, ever give 
a serious though , o their mental growth? 
They have no time ; no time to live, but only 
to exist. Do nov misunderstand me. I do not 
expect, nor do I think it t> able, that the great 
majority of people can nake mtellectual im¬ 
provement their first or only aim. God’s wis¬ 
dom has made the law rrv an must dig and 
delve, must work with hi* bands, and bend his 
back to the burden that is laid u aon it. We 
must have bread; but how inexpre, ssibly fool¬ 
ish it is to suppose we can live by brtead alone. 

'‘Granting all that can be claimed foir lack of 
time, for the food and clothing to be brought, 
and the debts to be paid, the truth emaains— 
and I beg you to remember it* -the person who 
allows his mental and spiritual nature o stag¬ 
nate and decay does so not for want tim 7 .e, 
but for want of inclination. The farm, the* 
shop, and the office are not such nard masters t 
as we imagine. We yield too easily to their 
sway, and set them up as rulers, when they 
ought to be only servants. There is no voca¬ 
tion—absolutely none—that cuts off entirely 
the opportunities for intellectual development. 
The Kingdom of Light is an especially delight- 
46 




THE WINNING OF THE B ST 

ful home for him whose purse is not of su^ 
ficient weight to provide a home elsewh/Q 
and a humble cottage in the Kingdom ^ 
made to shine with a brightness aD P j ( ^ en 
walls. For my part I would athr " 

Charles Lamb than the Dwe£ 
and his influence in the wor« 1 
the greater of the two. ,/y* he . ^t but 

clerk in the India H« VP^ r m 1 ’ rtv 

rich beyond measure^ ^ ^^ 
whose jewels are not ^ tn S . h 

The problem of 

r— P 2ito the high and benefi. 

cent, forgtu g n ' t’ t these last are incom 

parably the ir- P : ' olous ; * * * . . tWnk _ 

“I may be wrong, but I cannot help think 

ing that neither here nor hereafter does sal¬ 
vation lie in wheat, or corn, or iron 

“Again I must plead that you take my words 
„ S them. I do « 

mere sentiment, nor of mane, impracticab 
dilet'tanteism. The Lord put it *‘ m,* 
lear n, long ago, that we cannoteatpoet y 
art., or sunbeams. And yet I hold it true, now 
arid always, that life without these * g d 
p horn of more than half its value. The oxa 
his master differ little in dignity if ne*he rt 
/ above the level of the stomach ° r * e m ^ g 
But in the Kingdom of Light, m t 

life I am saying we ought to lead, nothing can 

47 




THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

be taken from us that can be compared with 
vhat we shall receive. . . • 

‘Some there are, no doubt, who believe that 
intei. „ tual cu i ture does not make men better 
or happ..^ an d that the conscience and moral 
faculties an se t apart from merely mental at¬ 
tributes. But surely you have not accepted 
such a false and *arrow view. Unless colleges 
are a foolish and c>t)ensive luxury; unless civ¬ 
ilisation is worthless, unless the centuries that 
have witnessed the upvrard stride £ humanity 
have been wasted; unless the sava e, chatter¬ 
ing incantations to his ch, is a ncbler pro¬ 
duct of the race than a Mi> on. a Wilber force, 
an Emerson, or a Lowell, then heart and mind, 
morality and education, do go together n true 
and loyal companionship. The t rouble of to¬ 
day, as I have tried to show, is not tha we 
have too much culture, but too much bendmg 
of the knee to purely material results; too 
much worship of the big, and not enough of 
the great. . . . 

“When I hear the glorification of this last 
twenty years, of the fields subdued, the rmads 
rebuilt, the fortunes accumulated, he factoi “ies 
started, I say to myself: “All these are goiod, 
but not so good that we should make .1 selve s 
hoarse with huzzas, or that we should suppose 
for a moment they belong to the higher order 
of achievement.” 


48 


THE POWER THAT 
MAKES US WHAT 

WE ARE 










A N all-controlling law underlies, permeates, 
and governs all things. This all-control- 
ling law is based upon a self-conscious, 
self-existing, all-pervading, active and hence 
omnipotent intelligence or Unity. This self- 
existing Unity is God. There is an inner 
Essence that animates and gives form to all 
that is in existence. All things therefore come 
from Divine Being, God, and God alone. 

The Divine Essence that lives in and ani¬ 
mates each thing is the life of each thing. God 
then is the Infinite Being, the Infinite Spirit of 
Life which fills all in existence with Himself 
alone, so that all is He, since He is All. God 
and God manifest is all there is. 

Divine Being, God, then, is the one and only 
Life. We cannot say truly that God has life, 
for as God is life, so we also then are Life— 
Life manifesting itself in the form in existence 
that we denominate by the term body. Thus 
it is that your life and mine in its reality is 
one with the Life of God. 

One cannot truly say then that man has a 
spirit, because he is Spirit, Spirit manifesting 
while here in this physical, material universe— 
related to it—through the instrumentality of a 
physical, material body. The former per¬ 
manent and eternal; the latter changing and 
51 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


transient. We never could have been nor ever 
can be other than Divine Being. Truly then in 
Him we Live and move and have our being. 
“I am thine own Spirit,” are the words that the 
Infinite Intelligence by means of the inner voice 
is continually speaking to every human soul. 
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, 
after our likeness; and let them have domin¬ 
ion.” Man therefore is essentially Divine, part 
and parcel of the Infinite Life, and so essen¬ 
tially good, and with the divine attributes and 
powers potential within him. It is ours to live 
in this consciousness after we once realise it, 
and thus to allow the God consciousness to fill 
us and to flow through us in all phases of our 
human existence. 

In his great work: “The Education of Man,” 
Friedrich Froebel has said: “It is the destiny 
and life-work of all things to unfold their es¬ 
sence, hence their divine being, and, therefore, 
the Divine Unity itself—to reveal God in their 
external and transient being. It is the special 
destiny and life-work of man, as an intelligent 
and rational being, to become fully, vividly, and 
clearly conscious of his essence, of the divine 
effluence in him, and, therefore, of God; to 
become fully, vividly, and clearly conscious of 
his destiny and life-work; and to accomplish 
this, to render it (his essence) active, to reveal 
it in his own life with self-determination and 
freedom. 


52 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


“Education consists in leading man, as a 
thinking, intelligent being, growing into self- 
consciousness, to a pure and unsullied, con¬ 
scious and free representation of the inner law 
of Divine Unity, and in teaching him ways and 
means thereto. . . . By education, then, the 
divine essence of man should be unfolded, 
brought out, lifted into consciousness, and man 
himself raised into free, conscious obedience to 
the divine principle that lives in him, and to a 
free representation of this principle in his 
life.” 

Along this same line the highly illumined 
German philosopher, Fichte, has said: “God 
alone is, and nothing besides him—a principle 
which, it seems to me, may be easily compre¬ 
hended, and which is the indispensable con¬ 
dition of all religious insight. . . . An insight 
into the absolute unity of the Human Exist¬ 
ence with the Divine is certainly the profound- 
est Knowledge that man can attain. . . 

In showing then how universally Divine 
Being incarnates itself in human Life, and how 
its attributes are inherent there, he says: 
“From the first standing-point the Eternal 
Work becomes flesh, assumes a personal, sen¬ 
sible, and human existence, without obstruction 
or reserve, in all times, and in every individual 
man who has a living insight into his unity 
with God, and who actually and in truth gives 
up his personal life to the Divine Life within 
53 



THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

him, precisely in the same way as it became 
incarnate in Jesus Christ.” 

Speaking, then, of the great fundamental 
fact of the truth that Jesus himself perceived 
and gave to the world, and also of the manner 
whereby he came into the perception of it, he 
says: ‘‘Jesus of Nazareth undoubtedly pos¬ 
sessed the highest perception containing the 
foundation of all other Truth, of the absolute 
identity of Humanity with the Godhead, as re¬ 
gards what is essentially real in the former. 
His self-consciousness was at once the pure 
and absolute Truth of Reason itself, self-exis¬ 
tent and independent, the simple fact of con¬ 
sciousness.” 

Ordinarily we are at life from the wrong 
side. We are giving our time and attention 
to the external features of life, when we should 
be giving our time and attention to the inner 
life, that is always and with an absolute pre¬ 
cision, determining the outward—and thereby 
live a more natural, orderly, harmonious, and 
abundant life. What evidence have we of this? 
The lives of all the prophets, seers, sages and 
saviours in the world’s history. The lives also 
of many among us to-day, and in increasing 
numbers, who are conscious of and who under¬ 
stand the Science of Being, and whose lives are 
governed and therefore moulded by its laws. 

The world’s supreme example of this is Jesus 
of Nazareth, he who became the Christ, and 
54 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

thereby the Saviour. Jesus concerned himself 
absolutely with one thing—the inner life. “I 
and the Father are one,” hence his Christ con¬ 
sciousness. He never recognised for a moment 
that he had any life outside of the life of God— 
the Father—was his term. “The words I speak 
unto you I speak not from myself: but the 
Father abiding in me doeth His work. Believe 
me that I am in the Father, and the Father in 
me: or believe me for the very work’s sake.” 
And to those before him he said: “Call no man 
your father upon the earth: for one is your 
Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye 
called masters: for one is your master, even 
Christ; and all ye are brethren.” Notice that 
he did not say, Jesus. He never speaks of his 
life in any other connection than as one with 
the Father’s life. 

To him, only in conscious union with God 
was there reality. He spoke therefore always 
of that which he knew and that which he him¬ 
self had realised and seen. It was what we 
term “practical experience.” He proclaimed 
the truth of no lav/ or principle the operation 
of which he himself was not the demonstration. 
He therefore spoke with power and authority. 
“He spoke as one having authority, and not as 
the Scribes,” we are told. He never claimed 
for himself anything that he did not proclaim, 
and in a very definite way, was for all mankind. 
His realisation and his power, he said repeat- 
55 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


edly, were the same for all who came into this 
same realisation of their oneness with the 
Father’s life. 

Necessarily it is true that if a man teaches 
truth, or a truth, it is not only for those with 
whom he comes directly in contact, but for all 
1 time and for all people. The truth he taught 
applies to us in exactly the same way that it 
applied to his immediate disciples and follow¬ 
ers, and those who heard him then. He never 
violated or superseded law; he could not—but 
he knew and he effectively used law. He found 
the Kingdom of Heaven in divine self-realisa¬ 
tion. He taught us the same. We know the 
results of his life. He taught explicitly that 
there would be the same results in all other 
lives that are founded on this same guiding 
force that directed his life. “He that believeth 
on me,” he said—and shows it by living the 
same life—“the works that I do shall ye do 
also; and greater works shall ye do, for I go 
unto the Father.” 

The surprising thing through all the ages, 
and the surprising thing to-day, is that we don’t 
get the inner, the real meaning of the life and 
the ministration of Jesus. We have missed the 
one essential thing his life stood and will for¬ 
ever stand for. Traditional Christianity has all 
along been teaching primarily the imitation of 
Jesus. Jesus would have us drop this, for faith 
in and the realisation of the Christ in dursehves, 
56 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

if we would enter into a greater fulness of life 
and power. He taught nothing in regard to 
the observance of anything in connection 
with his own individuality or person. In fact 
he was often grieved, and he continually re¬ 
buked even his disciples when they would fail 
to grasp his inner meaning, and interpret many 
of his sayings as applying to his own person. 
In fact what cared one of his supreme insight 
and his great impersonal outlook for this? He 
is totally unworthy of admiration or of any fol¬ 
lowing as a teacher if he did. 

It is truly as Fichte has said: “If any man 
be truly united with God, and dwell in him, it 
is altogether an indifferent thing how he may- 
have reached this state; and it would be a most 
useless and perverse employment, instead of 
living in the thing, to be continually repeating 
over our recollections of the way. Could Jesus 
return into the world, we might expect him to 
be thoroughly satisfied, if he found Christian¬ 
ity actually reigning in the minds of men, 
whether his merit in the work were recognised 
or overlooked; and this is, in fact, the very 
least that might be expected from a man who, 
while he lived on earth, sought not his own 
glory, but the glory of him who sent him.” 

The Kingdom of God and His righteousness 
is not only what Jesus intended to teach; but 
it is clearly and unmistakably what he did 
teach. In more than thirty places we find 
57 




THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


Jesus explaining to his disciples his special mis¬ 
sion—to preach the glad tidings of the kingdom 
of God. “He went about through cities and vil¬ 
lages, preaching and bringing good tidings of 
the kingdom of God. . . “But he said unto 
them: I must preach the good tidings of the 
kingdom of God to other cities also, for there¬ 
fore am I sent. . . .” “And he sent them forth 
to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the 
sick. . . .” “And this gospel of the kingdom 
shall be preached in the whole world for a testi¬ 
mony unto all nations.” 

And what did Jesus mean by the Kingdom of 
God, or as he now and then expressed it, the 
Kingdom of Heaven? His own words in direct 
answer to this are: “Neither shall they say, 
‘Lo here’ or ‘Lo there’ for, behold the kingdom 
of God is within you.” He therefore taught 
what he himself had found, that the conscious 
union with the Father’s life was the all-inclus¬ 
ive thing. “In Him we live and move and have 
our being.” 

And then he says, and this is the great hope 
and inspiration for those who would live by 
the Spirit—“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God 
and His Righteousness, and all these things 
shall be added unto you.” He was speaking 
directly of things pertaining to the physical, the 
material, the daily life. Again, then, it is the 
one all-inclusive thing which brings all other 
things in its train. It is the great Principle of 
58 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


life, and all other things follow, and inevitably 
follow, as matters of detail. It is the half trust¬ 
ing, half believing attitude, that brings unsatis¬ 
factory or no results. But nothing is surer or 
safer than Deity, if we but fully trust it. When 
we come into this divine self-realisation we are 
manumitted from many things, and among 
them the thing we call sickness or disease. 

Disease or any bodily ailments can have no 
lasting place in such a life. As one grows in 
this consciousness they will be pushed out be¬ 
fore it. There can be no illness of Spirit, and 
if through wrong thinking and errors in living, 
illness or disease has gotten a foothold in the 
body, it will disappear as spirit predominates, 
and harmony of spirit, mind and body is then 
restored. “The divine Life, always perfect, 
strong and vigorous, begins to flow through his 
body from centre to circumference until the 
entire body is charged with a fulness of life 
which is felt even by others who come in con¬ 
tact with him. This is Divine healing: and the 
time required for the process of complete heal¬ 
ing depends, not upon any changeableness of 
God—for God knows no time but the eternal 
now—but entirely upon the ability of the per¬ 
son to recognise and trust the Power which 
worketh in him.” 

The healing that Jesus did, and that his fol¬ 
lowers for many years after him did, and the 
healing that is done to-day, has been and is 
59 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


done, through the operation of the same eternal 
law—the ability to arouse within the one to be 
healed, the realisation of the power and per¬ 
fection and wholeness of the divine omnipotent 
Life within him. Now and then we are told 
that Jesus could do no mighty works in certain 
localities “because of their unbelief.” So far 
as the law is concerned there is no reason why 
there should not be the same powers of spir¬ 
itual healing among us to-day, as there have 
ever been in the world’s history. 

Among the attributes that this higher real¬ 
isation of life brings or more fully perfects, are 
wisdom, insight, power, an understanding of 
the power and results of faith, love, hope, 
charity, mental and physical poise, bodily 
health and vigor. All of these, moreover, grow 
by using. 

All things pertaining to the body, to the 
physical life, become subservient to the life 
within. Not that the physical is not important. 
It is very important; but it takes naturally its 
proper subordinate place. It is to be developed 
to its highest perfection and powers and used; 
but it is never to rule except to the detriment 
of the one ruled by it. The grosser appetites 
and desires fall away; all become finer, and in 
proportion as they do, a keener enjoyment 
always follows. That is why excesses always 
have to be paid for with heavy and sometimes 
with frightful costs. They never pay. It is the 
60 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


middle ground that brings always true and last¬ 
ing pleasure and satisfaction. It is perhaps 
nature’s law, God’s law, the law of our own 
being driving us always along the lines of 
higher unfoldment and development. 

In true growth and development there is 
never any giving up: for what we gain is 
always of far greater value even for real enjoy¬ 
ment than that which we leave. There is then 
never a giving up, but a falling away. “The 
Body of Man is the Sacred Temple of the Soul 
—to be cherished with care and affection, not 
defiled by neglect and hatred—to be strength¬ 
ened by self control, not weakened by unbridled 
desires and excesses—to be fed properly, not 
surfeited with luxury, nor starved by the stress 
of poverty and asceticism.” It is thus that the 
body becomes continually finer in its texture 
and form, sound and whole in its functions, and 
always a more fit instrument for the use of the 
life whose instrument it is. 

The strength that is engendered in us 
through this realisation many times enables us, 
when it comes to the practical affairs of life, to 
hold on, as William James in his splendid little 
book, “The Energies of Men,” says,—Until we 
get our second wind. He holds that we have 
what may be termed a second wind in our 
spiritual and mental life kindred to that which 
we have in connection with physical exer¬ 
tion; that we have springs of resources and 
61 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


power within us that ordinarily are never 
tapped. 

It enables us likewise to strike a better bal¬ 
ance between the contemplative and the active 
outer life. We of this Western world are, in 
the main, in no danger of being not sufficiently 
active and practical. We need some of the 
Oriental’s meditation and contemplation, the 
same as he needs some of our physical or ma¬ 
terial activity. To strike the balance between 
the two, gives unquestionably the more ideal 
life. Contemplation to be followed by activity 
and creative effort,* brings a balance to life 
that would otherwise be one-sided and produc¬ 
tive of one-sided results, which always means 
loss in some form. 

A recognition and a use of the spiritual reali¬ 
ties and spiritual powers potential in each life, 
does not, as some are inclined to think, pre- 

*The work of an eminent contemporary German 
philosopher, Professor Rudolf Eucken, of the Uni¬ 
versity of Jena, has some very interesting and valu¬ 
able thoughts along this line. Divine self realisation 
followed by creative effort—action—may, in a word, 
be said to be the basis of his philosophy of “Activ- 
ism.” The “Spiritual Life,” as the supreme reality, is 
* at the centre of his thought. “Religion,” he says, 
“rests on the presence of a divine life in man; it en¬ 
folds itself through the seizure of this life as our own 
nature. . . . But the full vivification of the divine in 
man and the gaining of a new plane of life can never 
happen without a recognition and an assimilation on 
the side of man. ... In this sphere there is no place 
for any mechanical instillation, and there is no 
growth possible without our own accommodating 
spirit.” 


62 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


elude the proper use of all natural, material 
agencies and helps that can in any way aid in 
a symmetrical and well balanced life. Take it 
in the matter of health or healing for example: 
while I think the spiritual powers within us are 
more powerful and therefore effective in the 
healing line, when we are able to use them fully, 
than the use of any external agencies, as by the 
use of drugs or any other agency of materia 
medica, it is nevertheless true that we are not 
always able at any particular time, on account 
of not having yet developed sufficiently the 
ability to use them, to effect the cure we desire. 

It would seem that when one is sick the im¬ 
portant thing is to get well, at least to all sane 
minds, and to get well in the quickest possible 
way by the use of whatever agency or agencies 
will accomplish this result. We must always 
remember, however, that there is never any 
permanent cure without finding and removing 
the cause that has brought the illness about. 

“Our whole spiritual life,” says Eucken, “is an in¬ 
defatigable seeking and pressing forward. In self- 
consciousness the framework is given which has to 
be filled; in it we have acquired only the basis upon 
which the superstructure has to be raised. We have 
to find experiences in life itself, to reveal something 
new, to develop life, to increase its range and depth. 
The endeavour to advance in spirituality, to win 
through struggle, is the soul of the life of the in¬ 
dividual and of the work of universal history.” 

His greatest works, now to be had in English, are: 
“The Truth of Religion,” “Religion and Life,” “The 
Life of the Spirit” (G. P. Putnam’s Sons) and “Life’s 
Purpose and Life’s Ideal” (London: A. & C. Black). 

63 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


There is no reason why we should not use 
every agency that God has placed in the world 
and at our disposal, that will minister in any 
way to our needs. Who shall say that if a cer¬ 
tain property is inherent in a certain herb it is 
not intended for our use if we are able to dis¬ 
cover its use and if occasion requires? 

“But it is a material agency,” says one of a 
certain habit of thought. So is water a ma¬ 
terial agency, and water, in addition to being 
one of the prime necessities for the proper func¬ 
tioning of the body, can be used as a remedy 
in certain bodily ailments. Many make use of 
it as a remedy with great effectiveness. So in 
regard to various other “material” agencies. 

At the same time we must remember that the 
chief use of any of these is to remove obstruc¬ 
tions, in order that nature, which has wonder¬ 
ful restorative powers if unimpeded, can do her 
work. They of themselves can do no healing. 
All healing is done—invariably done—by the 
action of the life-forces within. 

Why should there not be a combination of 
the two methods wherever both can be used to 
advantage? It is simply a matter of common 
sense. The only one I would keep clear of, is 
the one, to whatever school he may belong, 
who is too narrow, or bigoted, or ignorant, to 
study and to get the best from all, and to use 
it to its fullest. 

As is true in regard to water, so it is likewise 
64 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

true in regard to pure air—and an abundance 
of it. Full, deep breathing, if rightly under¬ 
stood, constitutes one of the greatest tonics, 
and even stimulants to the body, and with no 
bad after results, as some types of stimulants 
almost invariably carry. 

One reason why we are not so uniformly 
healthy as we might be, and why we have so 
many bodies with depleted nerve force, even to 
the extent of nervous breakdowns, is that our 
life has become so artificial. We have taken 
ourselves too much away from God’s natural 
“material” agencies of health—an abundance 
of pure fresh air, and water, simple and body¬ 
building and sustaining foods,—and not too 
much of it, and the less of flesh foods the bet¬ 
ter,—direct contact with the earth, sufficient 
of exercise—play or work—out in the open. 

This recognition of the Source of our power 
gives us that proper element of humility and 
hence of simplicity that is always an inherent 
characteristic of every well balanced life. 
Why? Because we then realise that in our¬ 
selves we are and can do nothing deserving of 
any special recognition or praise; but it is the 
Power that dwells and that works within us. 
On the other hand, it redeems us from that 
debasing and weakening type of humility that 
must of necessity be absent when we once fully 
realise the Source of our life and strength. 

This higher realisation frees us also from the 
65 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

fear in so many lives, and in some even the 
terror, of what we term death—either in con¬ 
nection with ourselves or those near and dear 
to us, as well as from undue sorrow in connec¬ 
tion with the departure of the latter. For 
Spirit there can be no such thing as death. 
There is a change, a cessation of activities here, 
and the dropping of the physical body. But 
when we look at the matter at all rationally, 
and in the light of the knowledge imparted to 
us by various inspired ones, we cannot conclude 
otherwise than that this is a gain, if we have 
lived at all in accordance with our higher lead¬ 
ings while here. 

We are living the eternal life now as much as 
we ever will or ever can live it. The only 
Heaven we will ever have is the one we realise, 
make, and carry with us. We determine always 
our o<zvn condition—Heaven or Hell—here and 
hereafter. It was the teaching of one of the 
most highly illumined and valuable men who 
has lived in the world, Emmanuel Sweden¬ 
borg,* that at that time there will be no one 
to judge us for our own acts; our own life, 
is itself our judge. Our life here determines 
absolutely the condition of our life there. It 
is simply a matter of sequence. We commence 
there exactly where we leave off here. All 
mental and spiritual growth and enfoldment, 
that is, our real character, is what we take with 

♦Heaven and Hell: Emmanuel Swedenborg. 

66 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


us. According as we are rich or poor in that 
here, it will determine for us our state there. 

The wisdom, then, of giving the greater por¬ 
tion of one’s time and life while here to the 
things that are permanent, to the things that 
once gained are gained forever, rather than 
primarily to the things we soon leave behind 
and cannot possibly ever take with us, is obvi¬ 
ous. A man, then, may be very wealthy here 
and he may pass on and begin as a pauper there. 
Or, he may be wealthy here and he may begin 
wealthy also there. It depends upon what he 
has made his chief concern while here. 

As Christians we go to church, and sing 
hymns, and listen sometimes to interesting ex¬ 
positions, and sometimes to very able dis¬ 
courses: but we refuse the one fundamental 
thing that Jesus’ life and teaching gave to the 
world. True worship is daily living—daily 
living in the consciousness of the God within. 
It does not depend upon times or occasions or 
ceremony or places. God in the human soul! 
and the soul is always as near to God, and God 
is always as near to the human soul, in one 
place as in any other. 

The consciousness of God in the soul of man 
is the substance of the Christian, as it is also 
the substance of all religion. “But the hour 
cometh,” said Jesus, “and now is” (since I have 
revealed to you the real spirit of truth), “when 
the true worshippers shall worship the Father 
67 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father 
seek to be His worshippers. God is a Spirit, 
and they that worship Him must worship in 
spirit and truth.” Again he said: “By their 
fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that 
saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth the will 
of my Father which is in heaven.” And still 
again—“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that 
heareth my word and believeth on Him that 
sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not 
come into condemnation: but is passed from 
death unto life.” 

When we say that religion should occupy an 
important place, or that it should be the chief 
concern in life, we do not speak a sentimental, 
a weak, or a meaningless thing. One more¬ 
over, who thinks he hasn’t room for it, or time 
for it, or is too scientific, or learned, or prac¬ 
tical for it, is generally filled with a consum¬ 
mate conceit, born of ignorance or of prejudice, 
and therefore of weakness. Observe and see. 
It is rather as Dr. Patton, formerly president 
of Princeton University, once said to a class 
of graduates: “Religion is the goal of culture, 
and the educated man must stand in some rela¬ 
tion to God. He must have some philosophy of 
human life, some theory of society.” 

So if we would win the best, we must early 
get rightly related to the Source of Life, and 
in the degree that we preserve our right rela- 
68 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


tion to it life flows on in a natural, orderly 
manner, and with a continually increasing un- 
foldment and growth. The sayings of some of 
the old prophets seem truly to be inspired, 
when we look at them in the light of the truth 
we are considering. “The Lord in the midst 
of thee is mighty.” “Acquaint now thyself 
with Me and be at peace, thereby shall good 
come unto thee.” “He that dwelleth in the 
secret place of the Most High shall abide under 
the shadow of the Almighty.” “Commit thy 
way unto the Lord: trust also in Him and He 
shall bring it to pass.” “Thou shalt be in 
league with the stones of the field, and the 
beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.” 

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose 
mind is stayed on thee,” has been and perhaps 
will be for ages to come, the sustaining force of 
thousands of lives. Perhaps no greater truth 
in a single sentence has ever been uttered in 
the world’s history than this. 

Ruskin was the prophet when he said: “I do 
verily believe that the world will come, finally, 
to understand that God paints the clouds and 
shapes the moss-fibres, that men may be happy 
in seeing him at his work, and that in resting 
quietly beside him, and watching his working, 
and—according to the power he has communi¬ 
cated to ourselves, and the guidance he grants 
—in carrying out his purposes of peace and 
charity among all his creatures, are the only 
69 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


real happinesses that ever were, or will be, pos¬ 
sible to mankind.’’ 

God in us, the Life of us and ever with us 
every one, working always in conjunction with 
us for our good, in the degree that we open 
ourselves to and work in conjunction with it, 
is the central idea of the New-Old Thought 
that has brought beauty of life and newness of 
power to countless numbers already, and will 
continue to do so to increasing numbers for 
ages yet to come.* 

As a working philosophy or religion or life 
principle, it seems to me sufficient for any life. 
For those who have the time or the inclination 
for the study of various philosophical and re¬ 
ligious systems, they will undoubtedly be found 
of interest and value. If I am not mistaken, 
however, the real seeker after truth in its prac¬ 
tical relations to life, even after he has gone 
through them all, will return to this as the fun- 

*It is estimated that in America, in England, and 
in Germany there are several millions of people 
interested, and many of them profoundly interested, 
in various lines of philosophical, metaphysical and 
religious thought whose common underlying prin¬ 
ciple is the eminence and the transcendent power 
of the Divine Life as it is realised, and becomes 
therefore a dominating force, in the individual human 
life. 

The confines of a small volume do not allow any 
adequate statement of its principles or laws, or of 
methods as to their application. In a little book, 
“The Greatest Thing Ever Known,” and in a larger 
book, “In Tune with the Infinite,” by the same 
author, a more detailed presentation of the matter 
is made. 


70 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


damentally basic principle. It is a question 
then whether it is not well to get founded on it 
before starting on the various researches. 

Certainly there are some types of minds that 
are easily led into various vagaries that cun¬ 
ning minds have devised, and who get all at sea 
and stranded, so to speak, and then wander 
without rudder or compass, hopeless and de¬ 
spairing indefinitely, for whom it would be ex¬ 
ceedingly well to get launched upon this great 
truth before they set out. 


71 

























A BASIS 

OF PHILOSOPHY 
AND RELIGION 
















W HAT a power the Church could have 
been through all the years and cen¬ 
turies—and what a power to-day—if 
it had built and stood soundly on this great 
central theme of the teaching of Jesus. It is 
sometimes a question whether the Church has 
not had a great part to play in obscuring the 
real life mission and teaching of Jesus. It is a 
question whether it has not been giving a stone 
in place of the bread for which such great mul¬ 
titudes have been eager. 

We speak of the Church of Christ, forgetting 
that Jesus, the Christ, never had the slightest 
thing to do with the establishing of any kind 
of a church. He never had anything to do with, 
and he unquestionably never had any thought 
of institutionalising religion or any of his re¬ 
ligious teachings. On the contrary, we find 
him continually speaking against the institu¬ 
tionalised systems he found in his day. Much 
that was orthodox in religion then he endeav¬ 
oured to show the people related merely to ex¬ 
ternals, sometimes even to the degree of re¬ 
sulting in error, and therefore of the nature of 
stumbling blocks for those who would know 
the real fundamentals of the truly religious life. 

So his whole life and teaching were against 
any established or institutionalised religion. 
75 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


It is rather as Henry Drummond has said: 
“Christ sets his followers no tasks. He ap¬ 
points no hours. He allots no sphere. He 
himself simply went about and did good. He 
did not stop to do some special thing which 
should be called religious. His life was his 
religion. . . . His pulpit was the hillside, his 
congregation a woman at a well. ... We never 
think of him in connection with a Church. We 
cannot picture him in the garb of a priest or 
belonging to any of the classes who specialise 
religion. His service was of a universal human 
order.” 

Undoubtedly the church with its magnificent 
opportunities should have a good and a thor¬ 
ough house-cleaning. There should be a 
throwing out of many used and now thor¬ 
oughly worthless things. It is safe to say that 
it could easily get rid of at least three-quarters 
of the impedimenta that have come down with 
it through the ages. Much of it belongs to 
other ages and much of it we have now entirely 
outgrown. To be effective it must be simpli¬ 
fied—the same as one of the great secrets of 
effective living lies along the road of simpli¬ 
fying. 

Does any one who knows at all of the life 
of Jesus have any doubt that were he here to¬ 
day, many of the institutionalised things in the 
church that bears his name would seem to him 
as strange and grotesque and uncanny and as 
76 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


deplorable as were many of the things he found 
in the established church when he was here? 
Do we realise how thoroughly he would un¬ 
questionably condemn many of the things that 
his keen mind and his loving heart would find? 
Much of its bread is stale; it needs a new 
baking. A new day calls for new wine, and as 
Jesus said, it is foolish to attempt to put a new 
wine into old bottles. This is a new day: there 
is a new wine. Mankind is advancing and will 
rapidly leave the church behind unless it will 
drop its man-made theories, and rededicate 
itself to the simple and fundamental teachings 
of Jesus. 

It should be a leader and not a follower in 
religious thought. But many splendid and 
earnest men in it have been and are earnestly 
working for this end. It is even now beginning 
to be vitalised by this great truth of Jesus' life. 
It was that splendid thinker and gifted teacher 
of men, Frederick L. Hosmer, who wrote: 

“Our thought o’erflows each written scroll. 

Our creeds, they rise and fall; 

The life of God within the soul 
Lives and outlasts them all.” 

If believing on the name—the person—of 
Jesus, making some kind of public confession, 
and being baptised in his name, were necessary 
in some established scheme of salvation and 
redemption, then certainly God was very 
stupid, or slow, or lazy in connection with all 
77 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


the other millions of His children before Jesus’ 
time, the same as in connection with large 
numbers to-day who cannot possibly ever even 
hear of Jesus. Can any sensible man or woman 
really believe this? No, the same everlasting 
truth that saves was in the world long before 
his time, and from the beginning of time. 

But here came one with an almost supreme 
aptitude for the things of the Spirit, and be¬ 
cause he struck so directly at this greatest of 
all truths, the supreme fact of human life, he 
has become the most influential teacher and 
leader of men in all history, and his name has 
become the greatest. 

He was known as Jesus, a common name in 
his time, the same as it is even to-day in some 
countries. It was not until he was well along 
in his ministry that he was known as Jesus the 
Christ. This he became through his wonderful 
aptitude for the things of the Spirit—and dedi¬ 
cating his life so completely to them, with the 
wonderful results that inevitably followed. 
Then by this clear-cut knowledge of the way 
to God, and by his pointing out to other men 
the way, he became the Saviour. “Before 
Abraham was, I am,” said he, thereby teaching 
in still another way that the Christ state—one¬ 
ness with the life of God—was the saving and 
vitalising principle. “Your father Abraham 
rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it and was 
glad,” said he at the same time. 

78 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


The Church undoubtedly got stranded on the 
Jesus part, and thereby lost, or completely 
missed, the Christ part. Or was it that his 
teaching was so simple that they failed to grasp 
it on account of this very element of simplicity? 
“I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and 
earth, because thou hast hid these things from 
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them 
unto babes.” 

When any theory or system becomes insti¬ 
tutionalised, then, there is always a very great 
tendency in human nature to bring in addi¬ 
tional things, to invent, to romance, to make 
more complex, and to mystify, in order that 
there seem to be enough to hold the people, in 
order, in turn, that the institution may grow 
or even hold its own. 

This has occurred time and again in the 
world’s history. It is the great danger of insti¬ 
tutions and organisations. Invariably the time 
comes when the spirit departs from them and 
the empty shell remains. Then people begin to 
feed on husks, missing thereby the life-giving 
grain. They think the vehicle is the thing— 
the end—when it is simply a means to an end. 
It is this condition that Jesus spoke so pro¬ 
foundly against. He would unquestionably 
speak as profoundly against the same condition 
were he among us to-day. 

If you get comfort out of the personal Jesus, 
if you get any help and comfort from water, 
79 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


or from public confession, from Communion, or 
from anything else, by all means get it. All 
these things will do you good if done in the 
right spirit. If done in the right spirit they cer¬ 
tainly can do no one any harm. But don’t mis¬ 
take any of these things for the life and the 
teachings of Jesus. It is the spirit of the living 
God, the Christ consciousness within, that 
saves and redeems and that guides men in the 
true religious life. 

The redemption of man takes place when the 
spirit of God takes possession of his mind and 
heart, and permeates his daily life to the 
minutest detail. “For as many as are led by 
the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God.” 
Such was the life and such was the teaching of 
Jesus. 

The one who has this consciousness of God 
in his soul, this essence of religion in his mind 
and heart and life, can well afford to let it flow 
down through and be the complete guide of his 
life, with the goodly train of results that will 
inevitably follow. He can then well afford to 
turn his back squarely on the various theologi¬ 
cal problems and theories and discussions that 
no man knows anything about anyway. While 
others are speculating and theorising, and in 
some cases even dogmatising in regard to the 
various problems of life—the doctrine—he is 
living the life, and thereby making it possible 
for him to know the doctrine. 

80 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


Were Jesus here with us now, it would be 
exactly the same as before—the Fatherhood of 
God, hence the Sonship, and resulting neces¬ 
sarily from this, the Brotherhood of Man. 

One day—when we have chronicled for us 
one of the most powerful and significant and 
eloquent teaching days of his life—both the 
Sadducees and the Pharisees were questioning 
him and endeavouring to trip him in connection 
with some of the established doctrines of the 
time, and one of them, who we are told was a 
lawyer, “asked him a question, tempting him 
and saying: Master, which is the great com¬ 
mandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, 
‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
mind. This is the first and great command¬ 
ment. And the second is like unto it. Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these 
two commandments hang all the law and the 
prophets.” Here is an epitome of Christianity 
and of all religion. 

Religion can be not only not divorced from 
life, but it cannot be divorced from every 
thought and act and detail of every day, hour, 
and moment of life. It is the guiding principle, 
the guiding , permeating force , and not some¬ 
thing that can ever be apart from every-day 
life. As Henry Drummond has said: “To con¬ 
ceive of the Christian religion as itself a thing 
—a something which can exist apart from life ; 

81 




THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


to think of it as something added on to being, 
something kept in a separate compartment 
called the soul, as an extra accomplishment like 
music, or a special talent like art, is totally to 
misapprehend its nature. It is that which fills 
all compartments. It is that which makes the 
whole life music and every separate action a 
work of art.” 

There is no such thing as religion and a 
man’s cheating his neighbour in the same life. 
There is no such thing as religion and a man’s 
gaining anything for himself at the expense of 
his neighbour or his fellow-men in general. 
There is no such thing in true religion as a 
Deacon or an Elder passing the collection plate, 
or the communion plate, or taking part in any 
way in the administration of affairs in the 
House of God on Sunday, and going out and 
doing his neighbour on Monday. 

It is a curious or rather an interesting thing 
that the only people whom Jesus had anything 
to say against, the only ones whom he ever de¬ 
nounced, were those who observed the outward 
forms of the established religion of his time, 
but did their neighbours whenever they had 
the opportunity, some even chronically. Those 
who oppressed, those who took advantage, 
those who were always looking to their own 
personal, social, or financial interests and gain 
alone, he denounced in the most scathing terms 
as hypocrites and vipers, those who “bind 
82 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and 
lay them on men’s shoulders; but they them¬ 
selves will not move them with one of their 
fingers. But all their works they do for to be 
seen of men.” 

“But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of 
heaven against men: for ye neither go in your¬ 
selves, neither suffer ye them that are entering 
to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and 
for a pretence make long prayers: therefore ye 
shall receive the greater damnation . . . Woe 
unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! 
for ye make clean the outside of the cup and 
of the platter, but within they are full of ex¬ 
tortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, 
cleanse first that which is within the cup and 
platter, that the outside of them may be clean 
also . . . Even so ye also outwardly appear 
righteous unto men, but within ye are full of 
hypocrisy and iniquity.” 

It is very easy and very common for us to be 
either hypocrites or thoroughly self-deluded, 
also in our day. Are there tests then for re¬ 
ligion, and especially, we will say, for the 
Christian religion? The corporation officer 
who through misrepresentation as to its hold¬ 
ings, the value of stocks, or who seeks the com¬ 
pany’s gain through the debauching of public 
officials, thereby stealing his neighbour’s rights, 
83 





THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


or who by underhanded, stealthy means under¬ 
mines or blocks his competitor’s business, and 
who is a church member, or who professes to 
be anything but the crook and the oppressor 
that he is, would fall in the same category that 
Jesus made mention of. The stockholder or 
shareholder—man or woman—who professes 
to be a Christian, and who buys, or still con¬ 
tinues to hold stock in a corporation that has 
any of these features in its management, be¬ 
longs to this same class. 

The merchant—the “princely merchant”— 
or the ordinary tradesman, grocer, marketman, 
or whatever he may be, who knowingly gives 
short weight, or stale or inferior or damaged 
goods, belongs to it. The merchant who ad¬ 
vertises a special reduction sale (wearing ap¬ 
parel or household furniture or whatever it may 
be) of articles that were formerly thirty-five, 
and “some as high as a fifty dollar value,” at 
twenty-five dollars, and who puts in two hun¬ 
dred of the thirty-fives and either one or two 
of the fifties, with a very generous sprinkling 
of the regular twenty-fives, and some of the 
twenties, writes himself in the same class. O 
bargain! How many lies have been told, and 
how many thefts have been committed in thy 
name! How skillfully thou hast been written 
upon! How many lambs—chiefly ewe lambs— 
have been shorn! how many geese—both 
geese and ganders—have been plucked in 
84 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


thy name! And thou retainest thy fascination 
still! 

The worker in whatever field who gives in¬ 
ferior, half-hearted, dilatory service, or who 
gives seven hours for eight, or eight hours for 
nine, in return for a good full wage; or who is 
careless of the property, the effects, and the 
rights of those for whom he works, or who is 
always trying to get a higher wage without a 
corresponding return of services rendered, is 
of this class. 

The man of great wealth, intent upon noth¬ 
ing but continually increasing it, and who 
doesn’t lift his hand for the aid of the young 
struggling for an education for advancement 
in life, or for the alleviation of distress when 
there is a crying need for help on the part of 
the needy and helpless; when, for example, 
the lives of hundreds of babies and children 
could be saved during the stifling heated term 
of the year through the agency of pure, clean 
and rightly cared for milk, or when ice would 
be a godsend and would help them or others 
through this portion of the year, or who shuts 
his mind and heart when thousands are suffer¬ 
ing from cold and some literally freezing for 
lack of fuel in an intensely cold winter, is of 
this class. 

The one who thinks that religion has nothing 
to do with matters of government, or with the 
administration of affairs of government where- 
85 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


by every man, woman and child is affected for 
better or for worse, and through whose indiffer¬ 
ence gangs of schemers and freebooters who 
use politics as a cloak for thievery, whether it 
take the form of a Tammany Hall organisation 
in New York or the form of a band of political 
thugs and looters of another political party, in 
cities where its machine in turn is dominant, 
is of this class. This is true whether he belong 
to the class that we term the “average citizen,” 
through whose inattention to matters of gov¬ 
ernment the political corruption and political 
abuses that are among us are primarily due, or 
the man of wealth who has both the ability and 
the means to investigate and to lead battle 
against these evils. 


86 


HOW WE WILL WIN 
THE BEST 




s 


















W E must never get away from the fact, 
even at the risk of repetition, that the 
life is the thing—that to fail or to fall 
down in it is the great failure. To fail in it is 
to fail completely, even though we may suc¬ 
ceed, and even brilliantly, in some contingent 
or some accessory of it. So no man can become 
marooned in a one-sided development, or do a 
sharp practice, or live a dwarfing, self-centred 
life without definitely contributing to the fail¬ 
ure of life. We can never afford to sacrifice, to 
chance, the future for the temporary or the 
apparent present gain. No man can afford, 
even for his own good, to do a crooked act or 
take a short cut that is dishonest, or dishonour¬ 
able, or questionable. The straight thing pays 
always in the end, in friendship, in business, in 
politics, in every conceivable avenue and phase 
of life. 

A reputation for strict integrity and relia¬ 
bility in business is one of the greatest assets 
that a business man can have. There have been 
innumerable cases when it has been worth 
more than any amount of capital. The busi¬ 
ness man who has been short-sighted enough 
at some time to have forfeited this element, 
appreciates perhaps more than any one else 
the cost that this forfeiting has been to him. 

89 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


The man who gives himself to questionable 
practices in politics, or who allies himself with 
bosses and their corrupt and corrupting politi¬ 
cal machines, realises, many times after it is 
too late, that he has thereby set his own limi¬ 
tations. The young man entering politics who 
is long-headed enough to keep free from these 
alliances, and who makes the interests of the 
people his one concern, in other words who has 
an eye to statesmanship instead of the business 
of the politician, will triumph, other things 
being equal, always in the end over those who 
succumb to the flattery of the boss, or who 
cannot read sufficiently in advance the signs of 
the times. 

This is true even if the boss or the political 
machine seems to be all-powerful at the time. 
A study into the lives, the administrations and 
the conditions surrounding the administrations, 
as well as the eventuating power and standing 
of such men as former Governor Hughes of 
New York, Governor Woodrow Wilson of New 
Jersey, and various others of a similar type, 
afford but a few of the many concrete examples 
of the way things work along these lines. 

To win the best in life it is necessary that we 
have a definite type and manner of thought. 
It is necessary that we have some more or less 
definite plan, and some manner of equipment 
for its accomplishment. It isn’t necessary that 
we have all the details of the plan, nor even all 
90 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


the details of equipment, in order to make the 
start—some, many of these can be gained along 
the way if we are in earnest. 

There are duties, there is work to be done, 
there are responsibilities, the same as there are 
joys in connection with all periods of life. 
Youth, middle age, and the later period in life, 
each has its own peculiar duties and responsi¬ 
bilities. The young man or young woman who 
is willing to pay the price in time, in effort, if 
necessary in money, for a good general educa¬ 
tion, and then for the special education along 
his or her particular field of activity, will gen¬ 
erally be the gainer in the end. 

The young men and the young women with 
the college education, with the university train¬ 
ing, even if they have to “work their own way” 
through to attain it, will unquestionably never 
repent having it—although in the great ma¬ 
jority of cases they will find that it isn’t as 
much as they thought it was. To have this 
knowledge, however, is an advantage. There 
are those who believe that a college education 
would have been a detriment to a man say like 
Lincoln. I do not believe that it would have 
been a detriment to him, because he had too 
much good common sense and too much native 
ability to have allowed it to become a detri¬ 
ment, and to a man of this type therefore it 
would be an advantage. Some features of it 
would at least have been a satisfaction to him 
91 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


on account of his great thirst for learning and 
knowledge, though the chances are that it 
would not have made him any greater or any 
more effective in meeting the facts of life as 
he met them. So I would say to the young man 
or woman, get the college education if you can, 
and there is scarcely one, at least in America, 
who if sufficiently in earnest cannot obtain it. 
If there are circumstances that prevent it, or 
that would seem to make it not advisable, then 
it depends entirely upon yourself as the years 
go by whether or not you sustain a loss by not 
having it. If the right stuff is in you, you will 
sustain no loss. 

Then when the middle life is reached, care 
must be taken that we do not allow the affairs 
of life and our own particular field of activity, 
with its many times complex relationships, 
ever to divorce us from living in the Kingdom 
of the Mind, and the Realm of the Imagination. 
If one has missed the early education, he need 
not be barred, unless perchance he himself so 
chooses, from that great and magnificent com¬ 
pany of the world’s thinkers and writers— 
companionship and intimacy with whom will 
make a man rich in thought, learning, and even 
in culture. It depends upon ourselves entirely 
whether we have this royal companionship or 
not. 

It was Macaulay who said: “If anybody 
would make me the greatest king that ever 

92 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

lived, with palaces and gardens, and fine din¬ 
ners, and wine and coaches, and beautiful 
clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition 
that I would not read books, I would not be a 
king—1 would rather be a poor man in a garret 
with plenty of books than a king who did not 
love reading.” 

There arises also at this age a peculiar re¬ 
sponsibility or duty, which might be termed 
the duty of preserving one’s self. To grow 
and to keep in person as attractive as possible 
should be not only every one’s pleasure, but 
should be also every one’s duty. Household 
cares, or business cares and preoccupation, or 
lack of appreciation of its sure value, cause 
many to grow careless along this line, espe¬ 
cially at this period of life. As the life at 
forty-five and fifty has been determined by the 
prevailing types of thought, and therefore the 
habits, of twenty-five and thirty-five, so the 
latter years of life are being determined with 
an absolute precision by the prevailing types 
of thought and consequent mode of life of the 
middle age. 

There is an especial duty at middle age to 
sow the right seed thoughts that will make the 
latter period of life as beautiful and as attract¬ 
ive as it can be made. To keep always a 
youthful interest in all things of life, and an 
interest in all things in the lives of all about 
us, leads in an easy and natural manner to that 
93 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


delightful old age that should be the ambition 
and the pride of all who are permitted to pass 
into it. 

When we examine the matter carefully, and 
when we realise that all knowledge and growth 
and development and character are cumulative, 
it would seem that the latter years of life 
should be the most joyous, and valuable, and 
happy of all. Its joys and its valued possessions 
come undoubtedly through living always in the 
upper strata of one’s being. Browning was un¬ 
questionably the prophet when he wrote: 

“Grow old along with me! 

The best is yet to be, 

The last of life for which the first was made; 

Our times are in his hand 

Who saith, ‘A whole I planned. 

Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be 
afraid!’ ” 

The condition of a very large army of people 
is accurately described by Brooke Herford 
when he says: “There are some people who 
ride all through the journey of life with their 
backs to the horses. They are always looking 
into the past. All the worth of things is there. 
They are forever talking about the good old 
times, and how different things were when they 
were young. There is no romance in the world 
now, and no heroism. The very winters and 
summers are nothing to what they used to be; 
in fact, life is altogether on a small, common- 
94 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


place scale . . .Now that is a miserable sort 
of thing; it brings a kind of paralysing chill 
over the life, and petrifies the natural spring of 
joy that should be ever leaping up to meet the 
fresh new mercies that the days keep bringing.’ , 

Life in no case is purely a bed of roses. 
There will be always the daily problems; there 
will be bread to get; or if it is not a bread prob¬ 
lem, then there will be wisdom necessary, and 
perplexing problems to meet in the wise use of 
one’s wealth. There will be disillusions; there 
will be suffering; there will be death; but the 
great beauty is that those who are in earnest 
and those who build on the great realities of 
life, for them there will be a wisdom that will 
enable them to meet all these things with un¬ 
derstanding and power, and always, therefore, 
with a due compensation. 

It was Henry Drummond who said: “Sooner 
or later we find out that life is not a holiday, 
but discipline. Earlier or later we all discover 
that the world is not a playground. It is quite 
clear God means it for a school. The moment 
we forget that, the puzzle of life begins.” He 
was right, but we may be as happy as we can 
be while the school keeps. There will be 
work always to do, but Ruskin lifts a curtain 
when he says: “Pleasure comes through toil 
and not by self-indulgence and indolence. 

When one gets to love work, his life is a happy 

___ >> 

one. 


95 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


Happiness is the natural and the normal; it 
is one of the concomitants of righteousness. 
Righteousness in its last analysis is living in 
right relations with the laws of the universe 
and with the laws of our own being. If we are 
making even a decent effort to know and to 
observe these laws, happiness in the main will 
be our portion. 

We will, then, inoculate our minds with the 
germs of happiness. It is just as easy, when 
we get the habit, as to inoculate them with the 
germs of fear or worry or cynicism or discon¬ 
tent; and the results are better in every way. 
We will not think of those things that are un¬ 
pleasant. Why do so? It will do us no good 
in any way; why, therefore, cripple our thought 
and thereby our energies when there is no 
reason for it, no good to be gained. We will 
take the winning attitude of mind, for as we 
think, we become. There is joy and happiness 
to be found in so many things all about us. 
Why let the incidental happening steal them 
from us. The world is so filled with pleasant 
things if we will only get and keep on the right 
track. 

No clear thinking or clear seeing man or 
woman can be an apostle of despair. No life 
at whatever age, or under whatever circum¬ 
stances, can fail to do wisely in realising that 
the glories of the sunrise or the sunset colours 
are just as brilliant and just as beautiful for 
96 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 

them as they have ever been. We cannot fail 
if we live always in the brave and cheerful at¬ 
titude of mind. He alone fails who gives up 
and lies down. 

To get up each morning with the resolve to 
be happy; to take anew this attitude of mind 
whenever the dark or doleful thought presents 
itself, or whenever the bogy-man stalks into 
our room or across our path when we are out 
on God’s broad highway, is to set our own con¬ 
ditions to the events of each day. To do this 
is to condition circumstances instead of being 
conditioned by them. 

Things that we can’t help, we can either 
accept with good grace or quickly forget. 

“It is no use to grumble and complain; 

It’s just as cheap and easy to rejoice. 

When God sorts out the weather and sends rain— 
Why, rain’s my choice.” 

So sang James Whitcomb Riley, and into the 
brief song he packed practically half the phi¬ 
losophy of life. 

Some one has said, “There are two things in 
this life for which we are never fully prepared, 
and they are twins.” But the philosophical 
mother or father, or aunt, or grandmother, is 
the one who is happy even when they come. 
“Cheerfulness and content,” said Dickens, “are 
great beautifiers and are great preservers of 
youthful looks.” It is true in a double sense 
that twins, as by and by they grow to the state 
97 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


of manhood or womanhood, will take a special 
pride in parents that if not always the pink of 
perfection in beauty, are noted for their youth¬ 
ful looks. 

Generally speaking it is idle for one to think 
that he would be happier in some other state 
or condition. It is however true that we need 
changes. We need changes from the ordinary 
duties and routine of life that we may get 
away from the beaten path, or sometimes, if 
you please, out of the ruts that we are all so 
likely to get running in. It is good for us 
occasionally to get away from our constant 
companions, our constant friends, from the 
members of our immediate households. It is 
good for us and it is good for them. It whets 
the dull edge of appetite. We come back re¬ 
vived, with fresh and many times new interests 
and aims. We appreciate them better, and 
they appreciate us better for these changes. 
It takes the cobwebs from our brains. It takes 
the kinks from our nerves, and many times 
thereby, from our acts. 

The occasional vacation, or trip, or travel, 
or even short absence, does, in this way, con¬ 
tribute to a greater happiness. But we must 
take the spirit of happiness with us; for unless 
we do, we will find it nowhere in the world, 
however far or varied we may travel in search 
for it. “After all,” says Lowell, “the kind of 
world one carries about within one’s self is the 
98 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


important thing, and the world outside takes 
all its grace, colour and value from that.” 

Life is not so complex if we do not persist 
in making it so. We need faith; we need to be 
brave; we need chronically to keep the corners 
of the mouth turned up and not down. And 
after all it is only a step at a time. “Any one,” 
some one has said, “can carry his burden, how¬ 
ever heavy, till nightfall. Any one can do his 
work, however hard, for one day. Any one 
can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till 
the sun goes down—and this is all that life ever 
really means.” And then each morning is a 
fresh beginning. The way we meet our prob¬ 
lems and do our work to-day determines all— 
and then to-morrow when it comes, but not 
before it comes. This is really the secret of all 
successful living. 

And as the days and the years speed onward, 
abundant helps will spring up all along the way 
to meet whatever conditions or problems arise. 
They will be waiting, and ready to help us to 
meet them with wisdom and with power, and 
to get from them the best there is in them. 

And when the summons comes to join the 
“innumerable company,” it will find us ready. 
Joyfully we will slip out of the old coat, and 
eagerly put on the new. We will not be afraid 
or even reluctant, realising that we are now 
living in God’s life, and that there we shall live 
forever. We will therefore extend a welcom- 
99 


THE WINNING OF THE BEST 


ing hand to the messenger, knowing that he 
can bring us only good. We will go even with 
joy, expecting that Swedenborg was right, 
when he taught that those who have been near¬ 
est in spirit and therefore dearest to us here, 
are the divinely appointed ones to greet and to 
care for us and to instruct us when we pass into 
the other phase of life. 

Happy and strong and conquering always to 
the end is he who knows the grasp of the Un¬ 
seen Hand. He it is who all along on God’s 
highway has the equipment for the winning 
of the best. 


END 


100 
































































library of congress 




000CH02L757 














